


The price we pay (For living well)

by DarkShadeless



Series: SWTOR - collection [16]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: And other troubles, Coping, Gen, I'm honestly not sure, Long-term medical consequences, M/M, Old injuries catching up with you, People confronted with that in themselves or their loved one, The joys of middle age, and dealing with them, if so it's internalized, loss of sight, reactions might read ableist at some points, so I'll tag it just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 05:10:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20809076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadeless/pseuds/DarkShadeless
Summary: Yon didn’t think much of it when he started having trouble reading the smaller font sizes. He isn’t getting any younger, after all.





	The price we pay (For living well)

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to post something else today but this jumped me and took my brain hostage for... six hours. In other news, I wrote this instead of learning for a test. :P  
Like I said in the tags, there's a few heavier themes ahead. Take care and enjoy.

It’s Theron who notices it. Yon… well, he notices too but he doesn’t think much of it. Who would?

When his holo-displays are a little hard to read he turns up the font size a degree, like a normal person. He’s not getting any younger. Let’s be real. It’s not unheard of. It’s _fine_. Nothing to worry about.

It’s Theron who wraps his arms around him while he’s trying to read his reports and murmurs into his neck, gently amused, “You’re squinting again, love.”

The way his lips brush Yon’s skin when he does that is more than a little distracting. “Who is what?”

“Squinting. You.” Theron presses a kiss to his shoulder and tightens his hold. Yon leans into his embrace without further prompting, reports all but forgotten.

“I am?”

“Yeah. You keep doing that.” He sounds almost apologetic. “I think you might need glasses, baby.”

That’s nothing Yon hasn’t considered himself. Not glasses, precisely, but there are a few things you can do about sight deficiencies that won’t make you dependant on wearing those in the field. You could say the Empire excels on that front. He just hadn’t relished the thought of… well. He hadn’t wanted to admit it was starting to become necessary. Yon knows better than to think you can power through medical conditions but that doesn’t change the way he feels. Looks like he’ll have to buckle up and be the responsible adult he claims to be.

* * *

“Commander! How good of you to come by. Would you like to inspect our progress on my latest projects?” For Oggurobb’s standards, the Hutt is all but bouncing in place in excitement.

Yon suppresses a smile. “Maybe later. Actually…” Time to own up and get some help. “I’m here for a check-up, if you don’t mind.”

* * *

“What?”

“I’m very sorry, Commander. The results are conclusive- I- I’m sorry.”

* * *

When Theron gets home that evening their quarters are dark. He’s convinced his lover has been held up again right up until he almost falls over his boots. Wouldn’t be a first. They’re both busy, Yon even more than him- but he’s home today. Could be that he has gone to bed.

Theron can’t deny a pang of disappointment at the thought. Dinner, when they can make it, is _their_ time but it’s better that _one_ of them catches up on sleep when he gets the chance. Stars know he has never gotten the hang of leaving his job at the door. Neither has Yon. That makes for a challenging relationship sometimes.

It’s not until he’s unpacking the vegetables he snapped up on the way home that he realizes something isn’t right.

The light of the kitchen lamps throws a strip of illumination through the door into the living room and- Yeah. Yon’s home but he hasn’t gone to bed. Theron lets his bags sink slowly. “Love?”

No answer. The uneasy feeling that ambushed him at the door grows.

Abandoning his groceries on the counter Theron carefully makes his way into the living room. Yon might have fallen asleep on the couch. He’ll just check. It’s probably nothing, his instincts going haywire again-

His lover is sitting up, in the dark, flame-bright eyes the only thing easily discernible, even with Theron’s mods. He’s hunched in on himself, elbows resting on his knees so he can fold his hands under his chin. Theron doesn’t need to see him properly to know what he’s doing. That’s Yon’s thinking pose and he doesn’t often use it to think about nice things.

He slides onto the couch and swallows, hard. “Hello darling. Are you alright?”

There’s no answer this time either. It’s not until he touches his elbow cautiously that Yon blinks himself awake from wherever his mind has gone. “Theron? You’re home.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. Can I-?” He makes a small gesture at the reading lamp Lana gifted them as a flat warming present. It’s the kind of thing neither of them would buy but they kept it anyway.

When Yon nods haltingly he flicks it on.

His husband looks a fright. He’s pale, paler than usual and the shadows under his eyes are more pronounced. Theron’s half sure he has been crying. _Stars and void. _“Hey…” He scoots closer, his hand sliding over Yon’s back until he can hug him to his side. “What happened?”

Yon sinks into his hold like a puppet with that got its strings cut. “… I went to see Oggurobb today.”

It takes Theron a moment to figure out what he means by that. “About the glasses?”

A shiver runs through Yon’s body. Close as they are he can feel it just fine. Can feel him swallow, too. “I don’t need glasses. Theron I- I’m losing-“ He comes to a stuttering halt. It takes him a few deep breaths before he can talk again and when he does he sounds more than a little distant, faint. “I’m going blind.”

_What?_

The claim stuns Theron to his core. It- For a while he can’t really process it. That- “What?”

Yon curls a hand over his, almost hard enough to hurt. He _clings_ to him and by all the little gods, Theron can’t remember a time he has done that. They both have their weak moments, times when they need support but he has never seen him like this, on the very verge of falling apart completely.

Or maybe he hasn’t been allowed to, the last time, because when Yon all but visibly pulls himself together what is left of his faultlines reminds Theron of nothing so much as their darkest days, when they were fighting Zakuul with no idea how to win and putting all of their hopes onto Yon’s shoulders without a thought to what it took to carry that.

It’s taken them a long time to talk all of that out.

All the worse, to see him draw on it now, on the same courage born from the knowledge that he _has no choice_, he has to face what’s ahead. If Theron didn’t know him as well as he does now, after years of sharing their life, he might take his composure at face value. But he _does_ know better and he _does_ see what's underneath. _Oh Force._

“Oggurobb thinks my time in carbonite aggravated pre-existing damage. My… my optical nerves are deteriorating. It started slow but the less there’s left the worse it gets.”

What do you even s_ay _to that? All Theron can think to do is hold him a little tighter. “But he can fix it, right? I mean, implants are a thing.” Case in point. What doctors can do with cybernetics is incredible and honestly a little frightening sometimes. It won’t be the same but-

Yon blows out a breath. “It would be highly experimental. I’ve had major Force-induced internal injuries in that area. They’d have to replace everything.”

_Everything_. Everything of _what_? Eyes? Nerves, for sure. Maybe even part of his- oh no.

Theron makes that stomach turning connection while his husband abandons all pretence of calm, squeezes his eyes shut and turns to hide his face in his shoulder. His voice is terribly small. “They could damage my ability to use the Force.”

And it’s in that moment that Theron knows, without a doubt, that Yon will never go for that. Not in a million years. For nothing, not if it kills him. He’d rather die. Which means-

Shit. 

* * *

Yon keeps on keeping on as long as he can. He gets up in the morning, he does what needs doing. Eventually he gives up on reading and has his whole report queue converted to audible output. But with every day, with every time he realizes how much more blurry his vision is becoming-

When he starts waking up early enough to watch the sunrise from their balcony, and Theron while he’s still asleep, he knows he has to do something. Something has to give.

“I can’t do this.” The words come out harsher than Yon intended. He’s… he’s worn thin. He’s not sure how much more he can take.

No. He knows he’ll take as much as he has to, he always has. He’ll come out of this on the other side one way or another because he has never learned how to give up but he feels like a sleen with its tail caught inside a trap and whether he manages not to tear at everyone around him while he’s thrashing in vain to get free is anyone’s guess.

He- he can’t.

He can’t do this.

Theron fumbles the cup he was about to fish off the shelf, almost drops it. When he turns around there’s such a deep-seated helplessness in every line of his body its almost physically painful to watch. “Okay. Okay. So you… you want-?”

“No.” Yon clenches his natural hand into a fist until his knuckles turn white, releases his grip just as slowly. What would he do if he agreed to the operation, woke up and had to live with having bought his sight at the expense of his connection to the Force? It doesn’t bear thinking about and it might not even _work_. There’s nothing to consider here.

… he did consider it. Briefly. Those were some of the most agonizing moments of his life, rivalled only by the last six months of the ever accelerated loss of his ability to perceive the world as he is used to.

This is happening. He’s losing his sight. He has to face that. He has.

But he can’t do it like this.

Theron takes a hold of his hand carefully and startles him out of his spiralling thoughts. “Hey. What do you need, love?”

Yon looks up at him, the light of his life, and braces himself. “I need to not be here.”

Incomprehension and _hurt_ flash over Theron’s face, Yon _thinks_ he sees that but he couldn’t swear he didn’t read it from his presence. He can’t trust his own senses anymore. They are trying to make up for his growing lack and it’s… it’s harrowing. It makes Yon doubt his own perception. He can’t live like this. “I want to remember things the way they _were_. Every day here is a pointless struggle to hold on to that and I- I feel like I’m losing myself by inches, Theron. Like I’m losing _my life_ by inches. I need some space to process this. I need to _not be here_.”

Theron tries to smile and fails just a little. It makes Yon wish he could fix this but he can't. He needs to- He needs- “Well, then you’re leaving. Wherever you want, love.” And because the man he loves is entirely too quick on the uptake he adds, half-jokingly and brittle as spun glass, “Can I come with?”

Yon turns his hand over, squeezes his fingers and prepares to break his heart. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

* * *

It’s better, on Tatooine. The desert still has that sense of solitude and vastness that drew Yon to making his home here in the first place. He has barely spent time here for over a decade now.

There was always too much to do. When they did steal a few days or weeks for themselves he rarely thought to bring Theron here. It’s not a hospitable planet, not the kind of holiday destination his lover jokes about going to.

What it is is… peaceful. A very strange thing to say about a planet on which every day for most living beings is a struggle for survival but then, Yon is Sith. There is a purity about Tatooine, with its endless deserts that wear everything down to its base components, that speaks to him on a fundamental level. This is the planet where he made his first true steps in finding himself. Even after all these years he can still draw on that clarity, here.

His house is a mess, despite his droids' best efforts. The poor things struggle with the sand so terribly a few have elected to shut down and go into conservation mode. He has to clean up quite a bit. That’s… not the worst task for his state of mind, actually. Busy hands and idle thoughts.

For the first time in months, Yon feels at peace.

* * *

“So, how are things on your end?” Yon runs a finger over the comm. unit idly. “You sound tired.”

_#I’m alright.#_

In the end, Yon had had to admit to himself that he had to go alone. He needs some space, time for himself. He has to get his head on straight and he can’t… he couldn’t take anyone with him. Not even Theron.

“Are you?”

There’s a sigh, half-drowned in static. _#I miss sleeping next to you.#_

Yon’s heart gives a pang. “Me too.”

They spend a few moments in companionable, somewhat yearning silence. _#You sound better, love.#_

“I feel better.” That’s the long and short of it. Yon’s situation hasn’t changed, he’s still headed for a time where he will never see anything again, but he’s starting to feel he might be able to get to a point where he can deal with that. He just needs time. He needs to give _himself_ time.

_#That’s good. That’s- that’s good.#_

“Yeah.”

* * *

Part of what makes Tatooine such a relief might be that some days Yon honestly can’t tell how bad his eyesight has become. It’s gold in gold, all the way to the horizon. Even someone without his difficulties would have problems telling one dune from another. He should know, he used to.

When he needs to not question how much of his current ability to see finds its source in his brain dissecting Force impressions and filling gaps with shreds of memory and intuition, he sits on the balcony for hours, staring out into the endlessness of the Dune Sea.

It’s not like the twin suns can ruin his eyes.

Between doctoring his droids (who complain about his abilities to actually perceive the circuits he’s working on quite a lot) and banishing years of sand from his house, Yon unearths treasures he has all but forgotten about.

For one, there’s a towering, man-high crystal from Ilum in his meditation chamber and he had no idea until he stumbled over it. Huh. _I wonder what my Jedi would say to **that**._

Nothing good, probably. A few of them have gotten regrettably comfortable with reading him the riot act over the years.

Well, what they don’t know won’t get him nagged. Yon’s attached to this rock. He’s pretty sure he stole it fair and square and it makes a wonderful focus, which is probably why he nabbed it in the first place.

It… clicks with him.

He has a few items like that here. Tatooine was always his private retreat. Even his apprentices rarely set foot in this place. It’s _his_ the way only the Fury was, before he went into carbonite. After, his ship had never quite felt the same. It had never again been home, without the people that made it so.

Here, that feeling of rightness still remains. There’s a touch of abandonment to it, of how long he hasn’t been here, but this place still belongs to him. Or maybe it’s _him_ that belongs here in some ways and always will.

Yon misses Theron terribly but he needs to get to grips with what this change means for him. That might take a while.

He becomes used to the creeping deterioration of his sight. Yon didn’t think he could, back when he became aware of it and its inevitability, but he does. The desert becomes more and more blurry as the days go by. It’s hard to tell but he’s pretty sure Oggurobb was right. Once he’s past the halfway point his eyes start to fail more and more quickly.

Until, one morning, he wakes and opens them and… all he sees is black. There’s no change.

Yon lies there for some time, listening to the sound of the desert winds outside and trying to slot that into his world. He’s… not upset. Not the way he expected to be. Maybe that will catch up with him later.

Or maybe it won’t.

After a little while longer he feels for his comm.

* * *

The flight from Odessen to Tatooine is the longest Theron has ever had to endure. He keeps turning Yon’s last call over and over in his head. It has been _months_ since he last saw his husband. He can’t wait to- yeah. See him. He cringes at his own choice of words. That… that will take some getting used to, won’t it?

_#Theron, can you come get me?#_

He sounded… Theron’s not sure. Calm? Sad? Fine? He has been recording every call they’ve shared, not that he would admit to it, and he still can’t tell. The longer Yon spent on Tatooine, the more he sounded different. Better but different.

Theron hasn’t been coping so well with that, or with staying home and pretending nothing had changed while his lover was off somewhere, slowly going _blind_ on his lonesome with no one to help him for miles. No help, no friends, not- not even him.

He has been going spare but he tried not to show it. In the end this whole thing wasn’t about him. It was about Yon getting what he needed to deal with… with… yeah.

Sometimes you can’t help people by doing what you would like to be doing for them, as much as you hate it.

His coordinates lead him to the middle of bumfuck nowhere and Tatooine doesn’t do nowhere like other planets. It’s literally _nowhere. _There’s nothing but dunes as far as the eye can see, and that one rocky outcropping at the foot of weathered mountains that have never seen snow and never will. Theron is half sure he got the wrong address until he’s clear of the rock face. The landing pad is so submerged in sand it’s barely visible even at this distance.

What draws his eye is the figure waiting at the edge.

_Yon_.

Stars, finally.

He looks fine. _Colorful_, who the kriff picked those clothes, but fine. At least he does until Theron has finished his hasty landing procedure and made his way down the length of his ship in a stride that’s closer to a sprint than anything actually dignified. He looks _fine_-

And then Yon turns his way, smiling, and Theron almost chokes on his own heart for more reasons than one. _Oh. Oh, suns and void_.

He closes the distance between them without thinking, draws him close and doesn’t realize his mistake until Yon says, uncertainty and laughter in his voice, “Theron?”

Hells. Yes, this will take some getting used to. Swallowing heavily he forces himself to lean back and loosen his hold. “Yeah. It’s- it’s me. Hi.” Yon is looking up at him, or at least in his direction but his eyes don’t track anything. Since they’ve last seen each other they’ve gone milky, though Theron can still make out some amber. His pupils are completely white.

He called because it was over. Because he was-

Theron’s stomach is a cramp. He didn’t think it would bother him this much, there’s nothing to _be_ bothered about, he’s not the one who has to live with-

“Hey.” Yon raises his hands, haltingly, and touches his face. He’s so careful about it Theron feels a little like crying. “It’s alright. I think I’ll be okay.”

Shouldn’t _he_ be the one doing the comforting here? Wobbly, he tries to contribute to the conversation. “You look better.”

There’s so much wrong with that sentence. Theron wishes he could snatch it back the second it leaves his mouth.

Yon’s smile deepens a little and it’s just like he sounded on the comm., a little bit sad, not quite as blinding as it used to be but still… happy. There’s something _settled _to him that wasn’t there before.

“I feel better. Let’s go home, hm?”

“Yeah. Let’s, let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yon's loss of sight is pretty much canon. Not for all my AUs but some. The Force-lightning injury from his childhood catches up with him, possibly was doing that since it happened, and he never noticed until he's older. But he makes his peace with the loss of his sight and later realizes it opens up new ways of perceiving the galaxy with the Force to him.  
He becomes quite philosophical in his old age ;)


End file.
